


Face Reality

by PumpkinWrites



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Non-graphic disfigurement, Reunions, RvB Rare Pair Week, rvb rarepair week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinWrites/pseuds/PumpkinWrites
Summary: They've been shoved into the same living space, at least for the night. It's probably due to the fact that they're both Federal officers and Kimball doesn't care much for finding them separate quarters, though it's not as though it's at all improper at this point, anyhow. The good doctor has been... off... since they've gotten to the New Republic's base of operations. The general finds out why when he catches sight of her face.





	Face Reality

"Emily, I can't tell you how happy I am that you're alright... L-Locus told me there were no survivors at your outpost!"

They've been shoved into the same living space, at least for the night. It's probably due to the fact that they're both Federal officers and Kimball doesn't care much for finding them separate quarters, though it's not as though it's at all improper at this point, anyhow. He's turned politely away from her, looking away as she removes at least her plate armor. He finds it slightly more respectful, though he's not sure she really cares, and again, it's hardly inappropriate.

"Well, I imagine there were no surviving soldiers when he left! And I don't know that he saw me at all. I'm just glad you weren't there!"

Emily sounds as chipper as usual, but she's not fooling him for a moment. She's been... off... since they've gotten to the New Republic's base of operations.

"... Are you alright?"

"Perfectly fine, General Doyle!"

Ah, right. Formal terms of address, at least on her end: there could be sensitive ears nearby. Neither of them trust the rebels not to spy on them, it seems. And at this stage, he, at least, would prefer to keep their level of familiarity as concealed as possible, particularly from the rebels. After her death being reported to him in no uncertain terms, along with those of the Reds and Blues, he's just happy to see her alive, and hearing her voice. What she says at the moment is far less important to him right now than the fact that she's here and alive to say it.

He hears her set down more of her armor, stacking it all together beside the small cot they'll be sharing for the night, and when the sounds stop, he finally turns back around. She's hasn't taken off her undersuit, neither of them will, and she appears to be digging in her kit for something. He wanders around her, to start placing his own armor out of the way for the night, but stops when he catches sight of her face.

The poor thing has always been pale, probably from lack of sunlight and her exquisitely poor sleep schedule. She would still have her lovely pale olive complexion, he's sure, if she'd ever gotten a reasonable amount of sunlight. Her paleness isn't what concerns him, and even though her dark circles are somehow worse than the last time he'd seen her, those don't bother him either.

What does frighten him are the freshly-stitched-up wounds on her face that stretch up and out from the corners of her mouth, across the soft part of her cheeks.

The stitching is undoubtedly her own work: she's given him stitches before and these look virtually identical. And heaven knows he's no physician, from the irritation around the edges of the stitches and of the wounds, he thinks they could be very recent. Good heavens, did she really sew up her own face?! She must have done that looking into a mirror, or something reflective, there's no way she did it blind... lord, he doesn't suspect that she'd had much access to anesthetic on the run, he certainly hopes that she managed to find some... goodness he feels a little sick just thinking about it. But of course he can't let her know that: the poor thing's probably in enough pain, even though she's somehow still smiling. So broadly that it must be agony for her. She doesn't need to distract herself with the worry that he might faint.

"... Oh Emily..."

"... Please go away, General Doyle." She turns her face away from him, and he sees her tipping antiseptic of some sort onto a scrap of gauze. Probably to clean up the area a little better, if she hadn't been able to do it on the run with the Reds and Blues. The formal term of address actually stings this time. "You don't need to see this! I'll only be a moment with this."

"A-Absolutely not! I'm not going anywhere!" He isn't entirely sure where she expects him to go in the first place, but he isn't going to argue with her on that. "Good lord, are you alright?! What happened to you?!"

"It isn't that bad!" She starts to dab at her face with the gauze, gently cleaning the stitches and the wounds they're closing. "I've certainly treated worse."

"You've treated worse than this on other people, not yourself!" He rests his hand on her arm to stop her movement. He sits down beside her on the cot, pulls his forearm pieces and gloves off, carefully takes the gauze from her, and picks up where she left off. "... here, dear, let me help with that."

Her hands fall limply into her lap, and she doesn't move again. Doesn't wince, and he doesn't even notice whether she blinks or not. He bites his lip, and his heart stings when he notices tears welling up in her eyes. When one starts to escape, he catches it with the back of his finger before it can reach her injury. He finally sets the gauze aside, pulls her into a tight hug and keeps her held close for a long, long moment. She's still smiling, but he can see the blankness in her eyes. She must be teetering on the very edges of her "happy place." She doesn't function very well out of it, though she's rarely out of it anymore. He doesn't understand exactly how Emily's "happy place" works, but she's, unfortunately, stuck there. At some point, it stopped being her reacting inappropriately to situations by smiling and laughing, and it became rare not to hear her sounding terrifyingly happy about amputating limbs and dissecting corpses. He didn't know how to help her, at first, and now, he doesn't know how she'll function after the war, but that's honestly the least of their concerns at the moment. He doesn't even know if there will  _be_ an "after the war."

She doesn't really react to the hug, at first, just moves her arms ever so slightly to rest loosely around him in return. Her question is curious. " ... what did Locus tell you?"

"That..." He swallows. The imagery makes him sick even to think about, but she asked, and he owes her the explanation. "... that there was a rebel attack on the compound. That they overwhelmed the men stationed at the gates and stormed in, just... oh, lord, indiscriminately opened fire, said they were searching for the Reds and Blues, and that the Reds and Blues... were caught up in the fray. He'd lost sight of them until it was too late."

"... what did he say happened to me?"

"... he ... told me that he saw you face-down in the snow with your helmet off. Didn't... d-didn't see you breathing. He said he tried to... tried to check on you, but when he turned y... y-your body over... he said that you'd... y-you'd likely lost too much blood, there... th-there was nothing anyone could have done. H-He had your... y-your necklace, Emily, I thought... I-I thought I'd lost you. Good lord, I don't know what I'd've done..."

"… please don't worry about that," Emily murmurs back, before she squirms in place to break his hold. "You're going to make yourself sick."

Right, Emily sometimes doesn't like to be held onto unless it's her idea, he knows that. It makes her feel trapped. And at any and all other times, he would absolutely respect that. Without question, of course. But he'd been so worried that she hadn't made it out of her outpost. He'd been so distraught. It was just such a relief to be able to hold onto her again. He simply offers her a hand to take. "Well, it's quite good I've got an excellent physician then, isn't it?"

She ignores the offered hand. "... I'd prefer not to have to treat an unnecessary sickness in the first place, but I suppose."

"Right. I'll try not to add to your work load, then." He withdraws his hand. "... Emily, if you ever want to talk about what--"

"I don't."

"... right." He fidgets, and the question escapes him before he can stop himself. "... may I... ask... how much of what Locus said was true?"

"... he was probably correct in that there were no survivors left. To my knowledge, there are no bodies left at Outpost Thirty-Seven to find. But there were never any rebels. We never thought they were rebels. We didn't know who they were." She shivers, and he reaches out for her again, but his hand goes ignored once more. "I'm... very glad you weren't there."

He chews the inside of his lip, understanding now the full gravity of her statement. She had made it out of the outpost because she'd been lucky. If there had been something to delay her even a few seconds, it was entirely possible that she would have missed the Reds and Blues and been left to Locus' mercy. If he had been there, there was no guarantee that either of them would have survived, particularly if they weren't looking for each other. But then... would Locus have even made such a bold move if he'd been there? Had he contributed, however indirectly or unknowingly, to the massacre at the command post, and therefore to Emily's disfigurement, by choosing that time to go to Armonia?

Perhaps, if he hadn't chosen then to abandon the outpost for some business in the capital that probably could have waited, he wouldn't have been confronted by the mercenary depositing Emily's ring and one of her identification tags into his palm rather like a cat presenting its owner with a dead bird, now that he's thinking about it. He wouldn't have heard Locus express what he originally thought were simply awkward condolences from a subordinate to a superior, or describe in flat, unemotional detail the condition in which he had allegedly found Emily's body. Wouldn't have sat in his office in Armonia reading over her tag, wondering what had become of her body, memorizing information that he already knew about her. Her blood type ( _O-_ ,) her service number ( _1209-714_ ,) her surname and initials (" _Grey, E. L._ ,") the "NRE" that denotes her status as non-religious, and the string of letters that identifies her as Federal Army personnel and labels her as a qualified doctor, rather than simply a medic. Turning her ring over in his hands, hooking it to the ball chain of the tag to keep everything together, so he wouldn't lose it.

He would never have come face to face with Vanessa Kimball with a rifle pointed at him while wearing Emily's identification tag and wedding ring on his own chain, fearing for his life and expecting to die with them over his heart. Knowing that this was the woman whose soldiers had been responsible for Emily's death. And somewhere under all the fear, thinking that at least if she put a bullet through him, he'd at least be with Emily again. He hadn't considered at the time whether atheists still got to see their loved ones after they died, but he'd admittedly been quite preoccupied.

His thoughts are paused by the feeling of Emily's hands on his, and he looks at her. Despite the ghoulish, haunting smile now permanently carved into her face, she's frowning.

"I know what you're doing," she states evenly, squeezing his hands. "You're trying to make this your fault somehow."

Of course she knows. "W-Well if I hadn't--"

"No."

"... n-no?"

"No." Emily lets go of his hands. She reaches up, unpinning her hair from its messy twist and letting it fall, pulling it around to unbraid it. She probably needs something to do with her hands right now, it calms her down. It would seem that he's correct in this assumption, as her smile comes back ever so slightly, and her tone brightens, as she fusses with her hair. She's trying to get back to her "happy place." It's... better than her being distraught, he supposes. "Your anxiety is getting the better of you again, and we simply can't have that right now."

Of course. He's just being silly and selfish, he knows that. "You're entirely right. We can't."

"And don't start: it's not selfish."

How does she do that? "That's neither here nor there--"

"It's precisely here! I know you, dear."

Ah, her "loophole" pet name. She calls everyone "dear," so it's not suspicious. It makes him feel a little better, at least. "... Be that as it may, Emily--"

"Are you going to argue with me for the rest of the night? Because if you are, I'll go see about sharing a space with Agent Carolina!" she chirps, running her hands through her hair in order to gather it into a ponytail so that it remains out of the way. "You know what I meant, and you're letting a flawed belief cause you undue stress when you're much more useful to Chorus not having a heart attack!"

There she is. Every single part of what she's just said sounds like a threat, even though she's absolutely beaming. To the point that it must undoubtedly hurt. She's definitely back to normal, for the moment. She's at least partially back in her "happy place." And as usual, that's both good, and worrisome. "... Of course, dear."

"... please don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like I'm going to bite your head off! I had quite enough of that with the Reds and Blues, I'm very tired of it."

"I know you aren't going to do that, darling." He reaches up and takes hold of her hands after she secures her ponytail. "... you must be exhausted. Why don't we get some rest?"

"Oh, I'm not tired."

Of course she's not. "Well, I am. And it's just been so difficult these past few days trying to sleep by myself. I don't suppose you'd indulge me just a little bit and at least lie down with me?"

"... I suppose I can do that."

"Thank you." He presses a kiss to her forehead and stands to pull off his own plate armor, stacking it beside hers. When he feels his identification tags hit his chest, he recalls the extra weight of her tag and her wedding ring, and he reaches up into unclip them. He turns the little gold ring over in his fingers for a moment, the diamonds in the heart and crown catching the dim light.

The chain had been tied around the band of the ring, to keep it attached. Locus had clearly realized that the ring, not the chain, would be sufficient proof of Emily's supposed "death." Well, if the single identification tag he'd also "recovered" wasn't enough, anyhow. But he offers the tag and ring almost sheepishly out to her. "... you're going to need a new chain, I'm afraid."

"... oh!"

She takes them from him, and her smile softens, like she's happy to see them. She clips the tag back onto her own ball chain, pulls the broken chain off of the ring and tucks it into a pocket of her undersuit, inspecting her ring as if to check for damage. He suddenly clears his throat, and offers his hand back for it. "... er... may I?"

She raises an eyebrow, but hands the ring back. When he takes her hand and puts her ring back on her finger for her, she giggles and her smile softens further and there's life back in her eyes. It brings a smile back to his own face before he presses a kiss to her forehead. While the knowledge that she's keeping details of her injuries to herself, when they undoubtedly must be weighing on her mind, isn't comforting, he knows she'll talk to him when she's ready.

Things aren't wonderful right now, but for the moment, he can stop worrying and at least pretend that they are, just for tonight. He's just happy to have her back, happy that she's alive. They can worry about the mercenaries and the rebels and the war in the morning. For tonight, it will just be them, and no one else. Right now, he supposes that they're both in their "happy place."

**Author's Note:**

> I intend to write more about Emily's "happy place" in a different fic, but that's better suited to a piece from her point of view.


End file.
